This blog (and this blogger) doesn’t often approvingly quote conservatives because, well, they typically have problems with consensual reality. But when conservatives do touch base with reality, as rare it is, we should acknowledge that. And Jennifer Rubin is absolutely correct here. She is talking about using Bloomberg’s oodles of money to remind voters that:
Trump is mentally unfit to hold office — any office, but especially the presidency.
Trump’s statements about the coronavirus, filled with self-congratulations, inanities, falsehoods and non sequiturs, remind us that he is unable to cope with reality; his sole aim is to elevate himself (although his antics make him look ridiculous). He wants a cruise ship to stay offshore so the number of reported cases in the United States will remain artificially low? That’s just nuts, and worse, it is dangerous.
Over the past month, President Trump has regularly sought to downplay the coronavirus threat with a mix of facts and false statements.
Trump seems to believe that he “knows more about” everything (energy, medicine, diplomacy, nuclear weapons, intelligence, law enforcement, trade, etc.) than anyone, and yet his gaping ignorance and refusal to learn the basic facts imperil the country and the economy. Bloomberg should point this out over and over again.
Trump thinks North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un loves him, so Trump gives up leverage that might force North Korea to denuclearize. Trump trusts the word of Russian President Vladimir Putin over the U.S. intelligence community’s, so Trump refuses to secure America’s elections and tries to extort Ukraine, a U.S. ally. Trump is obsessed with Barack Obama, so he tries to wreck whatever bears his predecessor’s name or is associated with Obama’s legacy, despite his own failure to devise a better alternative (e.g., the Iran deal, Obamacare).
It is not simply that Trump is an ignorant narcissist; rather, the concern is that his ignorant narcissism poses a risk to the country — one that brings us to the brink of war with Iran, emboldens Russia and leaves the United States vulnerable to a pandemic, which in turn may bring on a recession.
Perhaps some voters who cast their ballots for Trump in 2016 did not realize how bad he would be once in office, or they had bet on the Republicans restraining him. Maybe they deeply loathed Hillary Clinton. Now there is no excuse to keep him in power. And Bloomberg’s bottomless wallet should pay for ads to blanket the airwaves reminding them just how dangerous he is.
I do disagree with something earlier in Rubin’s op-ed, namely that ads shouldn’t be used to taunt Trump “but to mobilize voters and remind those who voted for him in 2016 why they cannot do so again.”
Why not both?